Michael Roebuck's Blog

On July 29, 2009, Yahoo! and Microsoft announced an agreement that will improve the Web search experience for users and advertisers, and deliver sustained innovation to the industry.

After reading several posts and news articles full of opinions and forecasts, I decided to post a few facts that were mentioned on one site that was written in plain English meant something to me:

• Microsoft's Bing will be the exclusive algorithmic search and paid search platform for Yahoo! sites.
• Self-serve advertising for both companies will be fulfilled by Microsoft's AdCenter platform, and prices for all search ads will continue to be set by AdCenter's automated auction process.
• The companies are hopeful that closing can occur in early 2010.
  

The companies have established a website at http://www.choicevalueinnovation.com to provide consumers, advertisers and publishers with additional information about the benefits of the agreement.

The transaction will be subject to regulatory review. (Insert my opinion here: Didn't Google try to get in bed with Yahoo and then back out after regulators said it would be a monopoly or something like that? I'm sure Google will try to block this somehow, won't they?)

Continuing with my opinion... Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz states, "With Microsoft powering Yahoo! Search, we'll be able to focus on the things we do best -- being the center of people's lives online with properties like our homepage, mail, finance, news, sports, entertainment, mobile, etc."

Where does Business fall in there? Is Yahoo! Small Business really for sale? Could Rob Snell, Greg Sterling, New York Times and Reuters, to name a few, all be right?

Labels: deal, microsoft, search, yahoo